The Wolf's Tale
by CLS
Summary: A year after leaving Hogwarts, young Remus Lupin hasn’t found a job. He takes a holiday and finds more than a few surprises. (‘Stag Night’ cookie)


**The Wolf's Tale**

"You look like shit, Moony," Sirius pronounced at the sight of Remus, who had just appeared in the doorway that separated the tiny kitchen from the rest of the flat.

"Thanks very much. I'm always a bit knackered on the day after, you know that. And, you don't look so well yourself," Remus said dryly. Sirius was barelegged and wore a wrinkled, inside-out tee shirt. In his unshaven and pale-faced condition he might have been a recovering werewolf, too. "How late were you out last night? I let myself in around midnight and then fell right to sleep. I didn't even hear you come in."

"Don't remember," Sirius yawned and went back to fiddling with a Muggle machine on the kitchen's single, crowded countertop, which was piled haphazardly with empty food cartons, beer bottles, and other flotsam and jetsam. 

Dishes clattered as he hunted through the jumble of cups and plates in the sink. He held up a glass to the light of the single small window. As it seemed to be clean enough, he filled it from the tap, and then poured the water into the top of the machine. This seemed to take all his concentration. There was a sharp click as he pushed a button on the machine, and then the thing began to hiss and rattle while steam came out the top. 

"Too much to drink," he chuckled with a shrug, "and then there was Sasha. She lives downstairs. Fantastic. Brilliant move on my part to take a flat in a building full of secretaries and shop clerks." He looked directly at Remus, grinning. "Nice girls, and they're all Muggles so they don't have a clue, not the faintest idea, you know. I could--"

"No, thanks." Remus shook his head and stared at the Muggle machine where brown liquid was now dripping into a clear glass pot. "Anyway, I'm leaving this afternoon after I get a few things in town." 

"Leaving? But, you just got here, Moony," Sirius groaned. "Is this something that I'm supposed to know about?"

"I'm off to Cornwall, right? I sent you an owl about it before the full moon."

"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I remember," he mumbled and ran a hand through his short black hair, still rumpled from sleep like the rest of him. "Sorry. Been so busy at work and with all the wedding rubbish…"

Neither spoke for a few minutes while the machine burbled and sputtered. Sirius turned his attention to the mess in the sink and made an attempt to sort it out. Remus, his arms folded, leaned against the doorway and watched his friend make precarious piles of dishes. 

When the sputterings and rattlings finally ceased, Sirius inspected the pot of brown liquid by taking it from the machine and holding it up to the light.

"Coffee?" he asked as he poured a cup for himself "It's really quite good. Nice little machine that runs on electricity. It's new since the last time you were here."

"Tea will do for me," Remus answered. His stomach lurched suddenly and unpleasantly as the smell of coffee filled the kitchen.

"Hmph. The flat comes with electricity, you know, so I like to try these things out." 

Remus recovered from the nausea that hovered over him like vultures circling a fresh kill, and laughed weakly, "Irresistible, I know. Do you have another machine that makes tea?"

"Ha!" exclaimed Sirius triumphantly as he pushed aside a stack of plates and threw several paper food cartons on the floor in order to make space on the counter for a mustard-yellow electric kettle. Soon it was steaming, although not as fast as if it had been enchanted. 

Remus watched him fill the kettle and listened to him babble on about heating coils, voltages and such arcana, amazed once again by his friend's fascination with the minutia of Muggle life. Electricity was fairly astonishing, especially since Muggles had come up with it on their own, but all these machines were slow and cumbersome compared to the proper spells. Like most wizards, Remus had grown up largely ignorant of how Muggles got along day to day. Although his father had been a Muggle, his parents stayed within the wizarding community after he was bitten as a small boy. If his father ever missed any of the trappings of his former life, he never mentioned it.

"Here you go. No milk, I'm afraid," Sirius said, after the water had been boiled and the tea steeped. He handed Remus a steaming mug and then gestured at a waist-high metal box tucked under the counter. "Might be a bit in the fridge actually, but--very scary in there. Let's see about breakfast. Er, what have I got? Cornflakes, bread… Oh, I shall be very brave and look in the--" He leaned down and opened the door to the metal box. "There is a bit of milk, but it's gone off. Aha! Here's some bacon that doesn't appear to be green."

"I'm getting tired of this re-fridge-rator," Sirius continued as he retrieved a paper-wrapped parcel and then stood up. "It keeps things cold, but they get rather moldy in a hurry. A simple Preserving Charm works much better. Want some bacon?"

"Yes, please," Remus answered. He was ravenous after not being able to keep anything down on the previous day, the day after the full moon. It had taken most of his energy just to Apparate from his mother's house in Oxfordshire, and a single night's sleep hadn't improved things much.

"Right, then." Sirius went to work throwing bacon into a pan on the gas ring. Once he'd finished that task, he ducked into the little bathroom, which was stuck off the kitchen as an afterthought, and came back with his wand.

"No machine for cooking bacon?" Remus coughed to suppress a laugh when Sirius waved his wand to light a flame under the pan. Another incantation caused a fork to leap from the sink, float over to the pan and begin poking at the bacon.

Sirius ignored the question and said, "This trip to Cornwall, about a job, is it?"

"Bit of a holiday actually. I--uh--have some applications out, but I'm not likely to hear on anything for a while, so I thought I'd do a little sightseeing before the wedding. Lots of magical creatures, of course, and cursed castles and--"

"I get the idea," Sirius said. He raised one eyebrow and gave Remus a penetrating stare, as the enchanted fork manically danced over the sizzling pan. "Bloody irresistible for you, hunting up Dark creatures."

"Studying is more like it," Remus said carefully, looking into his tea for a moment. "Outwitting demons or nasty fairies is quite tricky. There's a lot of legend and misinformation and--"

"--and you could write a book about it." Sirius finished with a forced laugh.

Remus nodded and sipped his tea. They'd been over this ground before and he didn't want to revisit what was becoming a sore spot between them. He was spared from further discussion when Sirius decided that the bacon was ready.

Aside from the tiny kitchen and the even tinier bath, there was only one room in the flat and it served as dining room, bedroom, and parlor. This was obviously a place that no cleaning lady had ever dared to enter since most of Sirius's possessions were jumbled about in plain view. He cleared off a small table with a sweep of his arm, sending books, parchment and an empty beer bottle to the floor. They sat down without further conversation and fell to eating. 

"Watch yourself, okay?" Sirius said with uncharacteristic worry after they'd polished off the bacon. "There's a lot of nasty shit out there right now--not all of it demons and fairies. Voldemort's little army is getting bolder every day and you'd be--" He gave an exasperated grunt. "I just wish you'd be more careful. You put yourself into places where…"

Sirius paused, his face troubled. He took a sip of coffee and looked intently into his cup. 

"Where what?" Remus asked guardedly. "Where I'm sure to bump into the Dark Lord? Is that what you mean? After what happened to my father, how can--" 

He shoved his plate into the teacup with a sharp clink. In the silence that followed he spread his hands flat on the table, palms down, and stared at them while he tried to calm himself. Those were fingers, human fingers, before him--not claws or paws or scales, or any of the other more fanciful things rumored about Lord Voldemort and his followers. Once again, he wondered if Sirius--and James, too, though James refused to bring it up--worried more about his safety or about his prospects for being recruited. 

Sirius banged his own cup on the table and cleared his throat.

"Look, I'm not accusing you of anything," he said in a gentler tone than before. "I just meant to say, that is--that no witch or wizard is entirely safe any more." 

"Business must be good, then," Remus commented, suddenly interested in his cold tea. 

"Booming. Couldn't be better," Sirius said with a shrug, less eager than Remus to change the subject. After an unsuccessful attempt to become an Auror, he'd landed a job with the Cerebus Protection Agency, a private firm that specialized in security for wizards. "We can barely keep up with the demand for Security Charms, enchanted alarms, and bodyguards. Today I've got to go to Cheltenham to--" He halted and looked at his watch. "Bloody hell! Is that the time? 'Scuse me for a minute while I wash up."

Sirius got up from the table and strode across the room to a large battered wardrobe. He rummaged through clothing, leaving an untidy heap on the floor, and came away with an armful that he carried to the flat's tiny bathroom. Several minutes later he emerged, clean-shaven with his hair slicked down and wearing a somber, dark suit.

"You'd trust me to guard your wife and daughter at the races, wouldn't you?" he asked.

"Mmmm. Depends on how old the daughter is," Remus said.

"Good point," Sirius smirked. He picked up his cup and downed the last of the coffee, but didn't sit. A restless energy had seized him. "I'll bet you could get a job at the agency. They're always looking for good people and your wards are the best. I can personally vouch for your Fence Spell being able to stop a Quidditch player at top speed." He paced the little room, kicking aside discarded clothing as he went. "Yeah. This is a great idea. Why didn't I think of it before? I'll talk to the head of the firm and--"

"Please don't," Remus interjected firmly. "I'm sure they'd want--"

"Five sodding recommendations, yeah. And I sweated like a goblin roasting on a spit about getting those recs," Sirius interrupted in turn, "but you won't have any trouble. All the teachers liked you at school."

"You're forgetting that I'm registered, Sirius," Remus said slowly, dragging out each word. "Once I came of age, my records became public. Anyone who cares to enquire at the Ministry can find out what I am. And they would, of course. Can you honestly see a security firm employing a werewolf, especially with things as they stand now? "

"Hmph. P'raps you're right. But, something will turn up for you," Sirius said with a brief smile that fooled neither of them. "Anyway, it's mostly bloody boring work and I won't be there too much longer. I'm angling for something bigger."

"Really? You mean they might take you as an Auror?"

"Damn right. Moody--he's probably the most famous of the lot--well, I've been working with him on security for the wedding, y'know. And some of the things he's done make me look like--let's just say that if they let him become an Auror, I don't see how they can complain about my record. I've learned a lot from him, even though he's a right pain in the arse to work with. If Moody recommends me, they'll take me this time."

Sirius shifted mental gears and said, "Where in hell are my boots?" After rooting around the room, sending clothes and blankets flying, he pulled out his wand, crying, "_Accio_ boots!" A pair of new-looking black boots emerged from a pile of clothing like dolphins leaping above the surface of the sea. He deftly caught them, and then sat heavily on the sofa to pull the boots on.

"You're not Apparating all the way to Cornwall today, are you?" he said sharply, looking up at Remus with more concern than censure.

Remus shook his head. "I'll take the train to Truro and go on from there."

"Good, because you still look like shit," Sirius said lightly. "Need money? I could lend you a bit, just in case you need… train fare to get back."

"Thanks, but I'll be fine. I've enough for the return trip, if it makes you feel better."

"Great. You know that there's this rehearsal dinner-thingy on the twentieth. James--or maybe it's Lily--wants us all there." Sirius paused while he tugged at a robe that was pinned underneath him on the sofa, then went on, "And after that, we'll go out, just the four of us. James deserves a bit of fun, especially after having to deal with all of Lily's relatives."

Remus, who had been dragged along on pub-crawls before, merely rolled his eyes. Did James know what he was in for?

"You're not getting out of this," Sirius warned with a wicked grin. He stood and put on the robe, then pointed his wand menacingly at Remus. "I don't care if a dragon attacks you; you'd better turn up."

"Oh, I promise," Remus smiled back at him. "Don't worry about me, though. I'm sure I'll be much safer on holiday than you are at work."

Sirius laughed as he raised his wand, and then held it motionless, poised to begin the spell. A more sober expression marched across his face and he said firmly, "Any funny stuff and I want to hear about it, all right? You could be in a lot of danger, y'know, and if you don't--Oh, hell, Moony, don't look at me like I'm a complete idiot!" With a final and disgusted shake of his head, he raised the wand and swiftly brought it down to complete the Apparition spell. 

"Take care of yourself, okay?" And he was gone.

"Right," Remus replied quietly to the empty flat.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Whatcha looking at?"

Remus put down the binoculars, a little startled by the question.  He had thought he was alone on the windy observation point.  He looked around in confusion, realizing that he needed to look down since the question had come from a small boy of eight or nine years wearing an oversized yellow plastic mac.  A round, brown-eyed face peered up through the hood. 

"Nothing at the moment," murmured Remus, a little uncomfortable with the company.

"I bet there's nothing out there," said the boy.  "Mum said we had to come and see, but Dad said it's a big waste of time and he'd rather be watching the telly."

Remus, confused, looked around for the parents in question but he and the boy appeared to be alone.  The top of the cliff was surprisingly flat, though down below the piles of weathered rock jutting upward from the sea like the foundations of an ancient castle.  The wind tugged at his clothing and taunted the surf, daring the waves to crash ever more viciously into the tall, straight cliffs.  

A woman's voice separated itself from the sounds of wind and surf, presumably coming up the slope from where the Muggles parked their cars.

"Richard, you promised," the woman whined, "that we'd have a nice holiday.  And Land's End, you know, it's--"

"--the ruddy most western point in all of ruddy England.  Yeah," came a man's voice, gruff and irritated.  "And now we've seen it.  Can we go now?  Didn't know that we'd end up in the World Cup semi-finals, did I?  For Christ's sake, woman, the match starts in under an hour." 

As Remus glanced over his shoulder, a man and a woman appeared on the path that came up the cliff from the inland side.  The woman was a billowing collection of scarves and dangling earrings; the wind swirled her long brown hair about her face and she kept pushing it out of her eyes as she spoke.  With her flowing long skirt and short cloak, she might almost have been a witch--Remus was reminded sharply of his mother--but for her companion, a dour man who had a cap pulled down low over his scowling face and was wearing a plain jacket and pants that positively screamed 'Muggle'.

"If you'd spend more time with your… " The wind began to howl louder and despite the fact that the woman was screaming at the man, some of her words were swallowed by the roar.  "How do you expect…time in front of the …"

Remus looked away from the Muggle couple, feeling like an intruder.  He raised the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the western horizon, which was murky and gray, an indistinct haze.  The Isles of Scilly seemed determined to remain hidden from view, even with a pair of Muggle-made binoculars.

 "Let's get out the ruddy camera and take a picture._  Then_ can we go?" the man yelled.

"Do you want to look?" Remus said suddenly to the boy.  He held out the binoculars, but the boy hesitated, glancing at his parents who were now fighting over possession of a camera bag.

The boy shrugged after a moment and reached for the binoculars.  "Sure," he said, "but you told me there's nothing to see."

"Ah, just because I can't see anything, doesn't mean there's nothing there.  D'you see?  No?  Well, have a look anyway."

Remus squatted next to the boy and showed him how to adjust the focus.  

"What were you looking for, then?" said the boy suspiciously, as if this was just another grownup trying to trick him.

"Dragons," whispered Remus conspiratorially with a grin.  "If you look hard enough, you might see one."

He had hoped to visit the dragon preserve on St. George, one of the Isles of Scilly that had been rendered unplottable on Muggle maps, but he couldn't get proper clearance from the Ministry, even with Dumbledore's help.  Looking through the pair of cast-off Muggle binoculars that he'd found was about as close as he was likely to get to dragons.  

"You ever seen one?" The boy fingered the binoculars, curiosity getting the better of him.

"My best friend rode on one once, but… he didn't stay on for very long,"  Remus chuckled and the boy laughed along with him. 

Before the boy could take his turn at scanning the horizon, his father stomped alongside them, saying, "Here, now.  Don't go bothering the man – and give those back before you break them."

"Oh, no," said Remus, hastily standing up.  "He's welcome to them.  I found them in the, er, car park."

"Nonsense!" scolded the mother, making a grab for the banged-up black binoculars.  "You give those back this very instant."

"Look, they're really not mine," Remus insisted, irritation mixing with embarrassment in his voice, "and I'm just leaving anyway."

He stepped away from the Muggles with a sense of relief, both to be away from the naked cliffs and from the company of tourists.  The parents had already forgotten him as they rounded on the boy and took the binoculars away from him.  

Abruptly he turned and said, "Let the boy have a look, why don't you?  He might see something…educational."

The father grudgingly handed back the binoculars.  The boy flashed a grin and a slight wave before Remus made a hasty retreat toward the solitude of the shore.

Over the next ten days he made an effort to avoid Muggle tourists as best he could; his path took him through St. Just and St. Ives, Newquay and Padstow, and finally to Tintangel Head.  The walking was generally fine, whether ambling along sandy beaches, climbing on craggy boulders, or crawling through narrow defiles.  

For the most part, he stayed clear of the fishing villages along the coast except to buy what little food he could afford.  The harbors were quaint with their collection of boats surrounded by clusters of neat, whitewashed houses.  But he didn't have the money to eat in the pubs or buy trinkets from the shops.  Besides, in mid-June the cobblestone streets and quays were crowded with tourists and he would just as soon avoid the claustrophobia that came from close contact with people.  Whenever he was hemmed in, surrounded on all sides by a crowd with no hope of breaking free, he couldn't think of himself as _human_ any more, but felt like a trapped animal trying to escape.  That wasn't right, he told himself, so he avoided crowded places.  

Along the coast road he was troubled by rain occasionally and by thick fogs that sometimes stayed all day, but he had a mac and a pair boots that had been enchanted to keep out the damp.  When the weather was fair, he prowled the shore for water demons; for his pains he occasionally saw a hippocampus swimming north after wintering on the Isles of Scilly and twice he saw merpeople sunning themselves on rocks.  At other times, he pushed inland temporarily, following rivers up into the Cornish countryside to search for magical creatures or to feel the old magic in ancient standing stones and ruined wizard's keeps.

Newer monuments marked where the abandoned tin mines lay, the lonely granite smokestacks standing watch in case the mines re-opened.  Only at Gevoor did he find a find a working engine house (as Muggles called it).  The dark smoke pouring from the stack surprised and disturbed him greatly, as it would to come across a living, breathing dinosaur, having only encountered fossils before. 

The tunnels from the old mines riddled the land along the coast, even extending under the sea in some places.  Occasionally, he ventured underground into one of the abandoned works.  There were bats and eyeless newts, but except for the occasional grindylow, he saw few dangerous creatures.  The old tunnels were not entirely safe, though.  Many of them had flooded without the Muggle machines to keep the sea from slipping in.  Often they were haunted by the ghosts of miners and, occasionally, of miners' wives who had cast themselves into the darkness when nothing else made sense.

The ghosts proved to be his biggest source of information, much more useful than, for example, his battered school text of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_.  That book was fairly comprehensive about magical creatures and fairies, but sadly lacking in hard information about demons.  The best that could be said about it was that the entry on werewolves was short and vague.  James and Sirius had done their best to annotate it, however.  The margins of page forty-one were filled with many imaginative theories on werewolves.  Perhaps that was why he still carried the book with him, though it was buried at the bottom of his rucksack.

Without ghostly advice, he would not have known to look for a hidden dungeon beneath the ruins of Redcliff Castle where there lived an ancient and voracious demon; if you brought it pickled eggs, it wouldn't try to eat you straight away, and this piece of advice allowed Remus to have a crude but very interesting conversation.  Nor would he have found the infestation of Red Caps that lived in burrows in the sand of Deadman's Cove just south of Portreath.

After searching for any magic that might linger in the stones of Tintangel Castle, he left the coast and headed south, intending to visit Bodmin Moor in the final days of his holiday.  He had to fall back on his own instincts to ferret out Dark creatures as well as on any information he could glean from the local inhabitants.

"Tha' weren't like any weasel I ever seen," concluded the farmer, a ruddy-faced Muggle named Tom Grumpeon, as they stood in his little yard next to the fence enclosing his chickens.

"A bit large, yes," Remus shrugged and tried to adopt the careless style perfected by Sirius.  "All those chickens he stole made him quite healthy, I suppose.  But, I've repaired the breach.  You shouldn't be troubled any more."

"Funny how I never saw that spot in the fence where him was getting in," mused Tom, a stocky old man of about seventy who lived alone on a little farm that stood at the edge of the moor.

Remus kept silent, knowing that he had been responsible for making the hole, so that he could close it back up again.  How else could he explain how the Jarvey, a large and very cheeky magical weasel, had been sneaking in to poach hens?  He had caught the Jarvey and warned it to stay clear.  Just for good measure, he put a simple but long-lasting warding spell on the fence.

"Some queer creatures come off the moor, you'd be surprised.  That's why I got to fence these here birds, else Lord only knows what would try to carry them off."  He slapped Remus on the back in a friendly way and continued, "You've done me quite a good turn, lad. Come along and have some supper."

"Thanks, but I should be going," Remus answered, hesitant to take advantage of the old man and eager to explore the moor with its queer creatures.

"I reckon I owe you something, a bite to eat and a bed for the night.  Since the wife died and my daughters moved out, I got plenty of room." Tom said cheerfully.  He paused and went on in a lower voice, "Besides, sun will be down soon and I don't think you'll want to be tramping about that country at night.  There be lights out there, and I'm not talking about cars on the A30 neither.  Then there's the Beast."

Remus looked at him curiously, but the farmer would say no more until they were seated around his kitchen table and dipping stale bread--"Make it myself," he confessed--into bowls of thick lamb stew, accompanied by rough brown ale that he'd unearthed from his cellar. 

"The Beast of Bodmin Moor," said Tom with the pride that comes from having a legendary creature in one's own backyard. "Tis a great black thing, some say a cat, that roams the moor at night. It's not wise to travel across that place on foot when it's dark. Sheep--aye, even dogs--disappear, not to be seen nor heard from again. And the howls you hear coming from the hills sometime are like to freeze your blood." Tom shrugged and took a large swig of ale as an antidote to his story. "Of course, it could just be the wind." 

"Of course," Remus said carefully. "Tell me, are there any particular times when people say they see this beast, a certain season, or time of the month?"  

"Dark of the moon--that's what some say," he answered and scratched his beard thoughtfully. He took another long drink of ale and set the bottle down with a loud clunk. "But, I reckon I've lost sheep most times of the month. I'm not saying the Beast is the only thing that's out there, mind." 

"No," Remus smiled and concentrated on eating his stew. He let the subject drop because he didn't want to arouse any more suspicion than he already had with his lies about being a university student engaged in a wildlife survey.  If Tom knew about some of the magical creatures that undoubtedly dwelt on the moorland, he probably wouldn't be able to cure his fears so easily with a dose of country ale. 

The old farmer had been right about the mysterious lights. The next day Remus found hinkypunks living in the marshy flats near Garrow Tor. The one-legged creatures with their little lanterns would lead lonely travelers into bogs in the dark.  Hinkypunks were not inherently dangerous, though, not like the creature he found (or that found him) as night fell. 

In the afternoon, he climbed Rough Tor, one of the rocky hills that poked through the grassy moor like granite islands floating in a sea of green. He joined a small army of fellow hikers swarming over the hill, ranging from parents with small children--either carrying or cajoling them--to fit-looking octogenarians.  Most peculiar to him were the Muggles who insisted, even took pleasure in, scaling the vertical faces with the aid of ropes and iron pegs driven into the rock.  As he rested in an ancient stone circle that still held traces of old magic and watched the climbers crawl up and down the rock faces like giant spiders, he wondered what they would think about a simple Levitation Charm.

As evening approached, a heavy fog moved in and swaddled the moor in gauzy white that turned into a dense and unfriendly gray after the sun set.  He was intent on his journal, and on copying out some of the runes he'd found scratched onto a slab that was part of the stone circle. The ancient writing hinted at a warding spell unlike those with which he was familiar so he took particular care in writing them down as precisely as he could; he'd need to study them later, maybe talk his way into Hogwarts to consult some of the books in the library there. When finally he stood up, stiff and sore from hunching over the stone for hours, the rest of the world had vanished into a mist so thick that he wasn't sure he was on the right path; he only knew that he was going down and not up.  

In the murky fog, he came upon a funny little man holding a torch; the creature was only a foot high, dressed in sheepskin clothing and wearing a piece of moss for a hat.  It beckoned him to sit on a rock next to a cheerfully crackling fire.  Remus did so, suspecting that he had encountered a duergar, a solitary fairy that jealously guarded its territory and would maliciously try to lead travelers astray, or would invite the weary traveler to sit beside its fire. Unlike a hinkypunk, which was relatively easy to defeat, a duergar was uncommonly strong and a traveler who met one after dark did well to treat it courteously and, if possible, to wait until daylight. Which is what Remus did, driven more by curiosity than by fear. 

As he sat by the fire, surrounded by impenetrable fog, he tried to get the duergar to tell him about the Beast or some of the other creatures on the moor.  Getting fairies to talk was easy, it seemed; the little creature told many long stories about its grandmother.  Getting fairies to tell you what you wanted to know was hard and Remus didn't learn anything except that fairy grandmothers could be downright nasty if you didn't bribe them with cakes, tea and, occasionally, a nip of whiskey. 

There were times during the night when Remus thought he saw a dark shape fading in and out of view in the murkiness that loomed just outside the circle of light and thought he heard a low, throaty growl heavily muffled by fog.  Whether fog or beast, he never knew.

At dawn, he awoke and realized he must have dozed off. Of course, there were no traces of the magical fire that had burned so brightly all night.  The sun peeked through clouds above him and did its best to drive off the last of the fog.  He rose slowly, his joints protesting, his head buzzing with the fairy's odd speech and strange stories.  He found a rocky nook, set the appropriate warding spells and Muggle-repelling charms to keep out the tourist hordes and slept the morning away undisturbed and free of dreams.  

In the afternoon, feeling unrefreshed and out of sorts, he climbed to the top of Brown Willy, the tallest hill on the moor and formerly a favorite hunting ground for dragons. Unfortunately, the barren summit had been picked clean; if there ever had been any traces of dragons, all were long gone. But the sky was clear and he enjoyed the view of the flat green sea of grass and heather flecked with sheep.  He was careful not to stay too long, though, and he made his way down the hill well before the fog rolled in again.  

The next morning, conscious that the end to his holiday was fast approaching, he walked east where the moorland melted into green forests and the gentle folds of river valleys.  He was on his way to Trebartha where he planned to spend the last of his money on enough food to see him through until the following day when he would Apparate to London.  (He had not lied to Sirius; he'd had enough money for a return ticket when he started the holiday, but he'd already spent most of it.)

As he skirted the edge of the forest on the east side of Kilmar Tor, five geese ran at him in a gaggle of hissing and spitting.  The birds--all large, healthy-looking and vicious--pecked at his leather boots and bit him through his jeans.  

"Shoo," he commanded with an ineffective wave of his hand.  His mind must have been elsewhere as he walked, because he now noticed that he had wandered near a small stone cottage with a thatched roof that sat in the shadow of the forest.  An unhappy-looking cow stared at him balefully from behind a rough stockade and a woman, who had been weeding a vegetable patch, was staring at him as well.  

"Clear off, you lot!" shouted the woman.  She hitched up the long skirt that she wore, leapt over several low rows of lettuce and cabbages, and came running at the geese, causing them to scatter with much angry honking.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, sir," she said breathlessly as she wiped the dirt from her hands on the front of her robe.  "Do forgive the birds; they mean well."

 "They make good sentinels, don't they?" Remus said mildly. Based on her dress and on the lack of any Muggle farm implements in her yard, the woman was surely a witch.  

She nodded curtly and narrowed her eyes suspiciously until they almost disappeared in her weather-beaten face.  As she appraised his muddy jacket, worn flannel shirt, and stained jeans, Remus realized that she had probably taken him for a Muggle, and a scruffy-looking one at that, considering that he hadn't shaved for two weeks.  Perhaps she even had Muggle-repelling charms set around her cottage and was wondering why they had failed.  Her hand traveled to a deep pocket on the front of her robe where she was undoubtedly fingering a wand and thinking that a well-placed Memory Charm might rid her of this unwanted visitor.

Remus had no desire to have his memory modified, nor to have to resort to counterspells.  A sudden, frightened moo and a flash of blue at the edge of his vision solved the dilemma over how to handle the situation.  The cow rose a foot in the air as a half-dozen Pixies, gibbering in their high-pitched voices, grabbed its ears and tail.  The cow might very well end up in a tree or on top of the house if something weren't done to stop them.

"_Impedimenta!_" Remus quickly cried as soon as he'd gotten out his own wand.  An orange blob of light shot from the tip and engulfed the frightened cow.   The squirming, chattering Pixies, also surrounded by the orange halo, froze as if they had been encased in thick honey.  Remus and the witch dashed to the stockade as the cow dropped to the ground with a tremendous thud.  

"Slows them down," Remus panted, his arms hooked over the top of the fence as he caught his breath, "but not for long.  If you have a wooden box or a strong sack, I can catch them before the hex wears off."

He scrambled over the fence and made his way gingerly around the cow, which had recovered first; the animal seemed woozy, but more angry than confused.  By the time he had scooped up six dazed Pixies, she returned with a flour sack into which they stuffed the creatures and then closed with a Sealing Charm.

After the Pixies had been banished to their prison, Remus introduced himself to the witch, whose name was Margery Jourdain.  

"I took you for a Muggle at first, but that was a nice piece of spell work just now," she said volubly.  Her initial reserve melted away once it was clear that the unexpected visitor was a potentially useful wizard.  "Pixies can be right annoying.  Why, there was one time they stuffed my late husband--may he rest in peace--down the chimney.  What a time we had getting him out of there.  Of course, living at the edge of Keitynys Wood, it's to be expected."

"Oh?"  Remus's curiosity woke up and did a little dance on his brain.  "That's the wood here, isn't it?  My map didn't show much out of the ordinary, but…"  He paused, waiting for her to fill in the rest.

"It's a deep one, and that's a fact," she answered slowly while she fumbled with a chain about her neck and drew from her robes a green stone, an amulet by the look of the runes carved on its face.

"How deep?  A hidden place, you mean?"  Remus asked excitedly, aware that he might be frightening her by the way he was staring.  

Long before wizards had figured out how to make areas unplottable or hide the likes of Diagon Alley from prying eyes there were places deep in forests or high atop mountains with a natural magic of their own, a magic that made such spots impenetrable to Muggles and difficult for magical folk to find.  And, these places often sheltered magical creatures not found elsewhere.  Legend said that ancient witches and wizards had devised the charms for unplotting by studying the natural magic of these hidden places.  He was puzzled as to why his map hadn't made particular mention of Keitynys Wood.  The mapmakers might have been ignorant or deliberately obscure.  He would trust the word of a local more than the _Magical Tourist's Guide to the_ _West Country_ any day.

"Well, sir, I wouldn't know about such things," stammered the witch.  She refused to meet his eyes, and stared down at her amulet instead.

"Look, I'm sorry if I upset you," he replied hastily, trying to soften the tone of his voice and the expression on his face.  "I should be off now as I want to come to Trebartha before dark.  I'll take the Pixies with me and let them go when I'm far enough away from here so they won't find their way back."

Margery Jourdain relaxed and tucked the green stone back into her robes.  "You've done me a good turn, you have.  I've got some apples in the cellar and a bit of cheese that you can take with you.  I dare say you know something of hexes, eh?"  She smiled up at him. "I'm in a right fix over my cow, you see.  My sister-in-law hexed the poor beast this spring and now she only gives green milk.  Aye, and it's more than an annoyance, I can tell you.  I've been having quite a time selling my cheese in the village.  Who'd want to buy green cheese?  You wouldn't be able to…?"

Remus kindly consented to reverse the hex.  The witch beamed happily and even the cow seemed happier, as far as one could tell with cows.  Thus, Remus found himself leaving the little farm with a handful of apples, a half-round of green cheese that was a rather sickening shade of chartreuse and a sack full of struggling Cornish Pixies--not bad for a morning's work.

He had set off with the intention of following a small stream into the forest, knowing that running water had a magic of its own.  After walking for an hour, he let the Pixies go by setting the sack down and releasing the binding spell from a safe distance.  As he went deeper into the wood, he wondered with every step if he had crossed into the hidden place that wasn't on the map.

When his stomach grumbled for lack of both breakfast and lunch, he stopped at a mossy spot next to the stream.  As he sat with his open journal balanced on his knees and chewed on bread and cheese, he thought about the holiday, about all the creatures he'd seen and about those he hadn't seen.

The days-old bread, courtesy of the Muggle farmer on the other side of the moor, was practically inedible.  With a sigh, he realized that a sandwich had been a bad idea.  There had to be some animal that would be able to nibble or gnaw through the hard crust, he mused as he picked out the cheese and tossed the bread away.  After finishing the cheese, which was quite good despite the color, Remus took out a quill and a bottle of ink, poised to begin writing, but his mind was blank.  _Any funny stuff and I want to hear about it, right? _He smiled to himself as he remembered Sirius fussing at him like a fearful grandmother.  

He hadn't been in much real danger, hadn't met any actual Dark wizards, although he had conversed with that demon beneath the ruins of Redcliff Castle.  He had learned quite a bit about wards and defensive spells from studying the old magic that still clung to barrows and castles, and he'd seen plenty of magical creatures.  

Each day of the trip, he had faithfully recorded every sighting--every Gwyllion, or Red Cap, or Nokk--with sketches and notes on diet and the effectiveness of countermeasures.  The latter came from direct experience in getting himself out of some of those encounters.  None of his experiences had been particularly terrifying; yet most wizards wouldn't want to fight off an assault by Red Caps or face down a Nuckelavee.  Of course, simply being prepared to meet Dark creatures helped.  It was common sense to have at hand a bottle of spring water that was usually effective against water demons and a steel knife, often useful for repelling the nastier sort of fairies.

Although he'd seen quite a few creatures on this trip, Remus couldn't ignore the disappointment that he felt at missing out on the larger and more dangerous sort.  No dragons, for one.  Not so much as a tooth, or a bone, or a claw.  And then there was the tantalizing Beast of Bodmin Moor.  If it existed at all, he should have liked to bring back a report on it.  Next time he would bring Sirius with him.  If anyone could find a large black beast, it would be Padfoot.

Next time.

Of course, if he got a job, such freedom would become rare.  A job?  Was that why he had declared himself on holiday, to improve his chances of getting a job?  

Remus put the journal and the writing things back into his rucksack, and then set it behind him on the ground.  He laid back, fingers laced behind his head, and stared overhead where the world seemed to be composed entirely of shades of green and gold, from the greenish yellows of sunshine behind new leaves to the deeper greens of the shadows.  

What was the point of taking such meticulous notes if no one would ever see them?  He had so many ideas and he suspected--no, he knew--that he had much to contribute to the wizarding world.

If only he could find a place.

Since graduating from Hogwarts, he had considered going abroad, perhaps slipping into the great bubbling cauldron of Muggles in Europe or even in America.  But, that would mean turning his back on an increasingly desperate situation at home as the Dark Lord attempted to take control of the British wizarding world.  No place would be safe, if that came to pass.  He still nurtured a vague hope that he'd find a way to join in the fight; he couldn't quit England until he'd exhausted all possibilities.  But, would anyone take seriously the proposition that a creature of Darkness, an officially registered beast, would want to fight against Dark forces?  Lately, he was beginning to wonder if even his best friends believed him.

The ever-changing dance of sunlight and leaves hypnotized him as he stared into the trees above.  He might have fallen asleep but for a flash of white out of the corner of his eye.  

He felt an itchy curiosity to look, but knew somehow that he mustn't make any sudden movement.  Slowly, not blinking and holding his breath, he turned his head.

An infinity of colors hung just out of reach; all colors were united under its mantle of iridescent white.  

He dared to breathe, conscious that this was his first breath since he'd seen it, and wondered if he would count each breath he took from now on.  Somehow it didn't seem too fantastic to say, "Three hundred and sixty-nine times I breathed while I was in its presence."

Such madness is not uncommon when one is in the presence of a unicorn.

The creature was a few meters away, separated from him by a scraggly hedge of undergrowth.  He rolled over on his side, trying to make as little noise as possible.  It was facing away from him, its head not visible as it bent down to drink.  But, he didn't have to see the pearly white horn to be sure because there was something about the way its coat shone as if it took the ordinary light from the sun and turned it into…_magic_.  

Remus had never seen a unicorn before.  According to their teacher in Care of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts, unicorns had become scarce since the rise of Lord Voldemort and could rarely be found in the Forbidden Forest; that was why they hadn't studied them directly.  From the little he knew, he didn't think he was particularly qualified to approach a unicorn:  he wasn't a female; he wasn't a virgin; he wasn't even fully human.  

When it lifted its head from the stream and arched its neck with a fluid grace that brought tears to his eyes, he forgot his unworthiness.

When it turned its head, he found himself staring directly into its eye--pale, lustrous and rimmed in black--shimmering like an abalone shell, swirling like a perfectly made Euphoria Potion in a cauldron, but with no center, no pupil to fix upon, so that to look into the unicorn's eye was to dive into a pearly universe of ever-changing hues.

When it flicked its tail, kicked its hind legs and disappeared into the trees, he followed.

The hunt--if you could call it that--was unplanned.  He certainly hadn't been expecting to find such a creature during the fortnight he'd spent tramping through Cornwall.  Quite the reverse; he'd been poking about ruins that were either formerly inhabited by Dark wizards or destroyed by terrible magic and searching the marshes, rivers and rocky hollows for as many Dark creatures as he could find.

He chased the unicorn for the better part of the afternoon.  The sun was setting when he finally caught up with it.  By that time, it was too late.

The unicorn never let him get closer than twenty or thirty feet.  He walked the forest paths as silently as any four-legged predator, but he knew from the start that the creature could sense him trailing behind it.  Why did he follow?  He couldn't come up with any good reason, then or later.

Several times, he thought he had lost the unicorn; each time, he was seized by a strange panic that drove him to find it again.  Over several hours, he developed a sense of where and when it would reappear in a flash of white, dazzling against the brown and green background like an exploding firework.  He would stealthily inch forward, getting as close as he dared, until he caught glimpses of the exquisitely delicate legs, flashing golden hooves and iridescent coat.

At some point, he must have crossed into the magical heart of Keitynys Wood where the trees around him loomed enormous and regal, and the forest had the feeling of a hushed, green cathedral far older than the work of humans.  But, the thrill of the hunt sang in his blood and he no longer cared whether or not he was off the map.

As shadows lengthened, it took longer and longer to find the unicorn each time he lost it.  When he did come upon the creature, it bolted quickly and no longer lingered to drink at pools or streams.  

He'd been searching unsuccessfully for three-quarters of an hour when he reluctantly concluded that he had lost the unicorn for good.  He was chasing a dream.  What's more, he wasn't sure it was wise to be in the hidden part of the forest when night fell.  There may have been good reasons why the witch he'd met that morning had fingered her amulet so nervously.  

Snap.  He heard a sharp sound off to his left.  He moved closer and heard branches rustling as well as a hissing sound that might have been voices, and then silence.  He went faster, threading his way through thick tree trunks and scraggly undergrowth.  A mantle of grim panic settled over him.

He found the unicorn, but couldn't save it.  In the end, he wondered if he could even save himself. 

A startling flash of white through a tangle of leaves and then a glimpse of black.  Remus stopped short and drew his wand before continuing.  He approached as stealthily as he could, and was grateful for a clump of bushes that screened him from the open space in which a little stream threaded its way between venerable old trees.

A crumpled white heap lying on the ground.  Something was wrong.  In a wild moment of panic, his mind refused to believe it, racing through all the other white things that might be found lying motionless in an isolated forest clearing.  The list was short.  

Two figures in black standing over the motionless unicorn.  Something was very wrong.  His stomach jolted violently.  Still hidden in the brush, he steadied himself against a tree trunk and felt his wand grow slick with sweat.

They were cloaked in black and wore black masks that covered everything but their eyes.  At their feet lay the unicorn, dead or stunned; its legs were bound with magical cords.  Its stillness was an abomination, a monstrous crime against nature.  

One of the men held his wand out, standing guard with a heavyset swagger about him.  The other man bent down over the fallen animal and gingerly placed a black-gloved hand on the creature's neck   Remus knew they were men because he heard their voices muffled through their masks. They were having an argument.

"You're a fool, Mulciber," hissed the second one, taller and leaner than his companion.  The muted voice seemed familiar to Remus, but he couldn't quite remember where he'd heard it.  "Time is critical for potency.  I must begin now."

"But the Master said to--"

"Go if you must.  You're of no use to me," he muttered and turned his attention to the body.

The first Death Eater Disapparated; the second one paid no notice.

Oh, there was no mistaking that the two men were Death Eaters, Lord Voldemort's black-clad followers who filled witches and wizards with so much terror that no one--no sane person, leastwise--in the wizarding world would even think of wearing a black cloak in a public place.  Just as people didn't speak the name of Lord Voldemort for fear of inadvertently conjuring up the fearsome Dark wizard, The Daily Prophet never showed a picture of a Death Eater nor of the luminous green Dark Mark that blazed cruelly in the sky so often these days. Yet everyone knew.  The looks, the deeds, the words of those terrorists in black were whispered in pubs, in shops and even in the halls of Hogwarts.

He had never seen one, only heard jumbled and confused tales from people at school like Neldon McShane whose parents had been killed by Death Eaters while he huddled, terrified, in a dustbin.  The Dark Mark had shone over the village on the night of his father's murder, though he had not been there to see it.  At home, his mother never spoke the name of Lord Voldemort, and Remus never pressed her.  But in his nightmares, he saw the hateful sign blazing in the nighttime sky; in dreams he saw too the black-cloaked wraiths and attacked them, tearing the hated cloaks to shreds.  They always turned up empty.

Remus wished desperately that he were dreaming now, that the entire afternoon had been a vivid hallucination brought about by eating the peculiar green cheese and that the scene before his eyes would vanish--if only he could remember how to wake up.

The tall Death Eater knelt next to the fallen unicorn.  With his companion gone, he seemed less sure of himself as he fumbled with the drawstring of a leather bag.   Glass clinked inside the bag; the sound was startling--so ordinary, so reminiscent of a far-away world.  The man carefully removed two vials wrapped in cloth.  After spreading the cloth on the ground, he set the glass down.  His movements regained a careful precision as he took off the stoppers and delicately placed them next to the vials.  

Remus thought he heard a sigh as the Death Eater reached into the bag again and removed another object wrapped in cloth.  He didn't have to see what was inside the cloth; he could feel its power even from a distance.

"Danger!" screamed nerves and muscles and bones.  His first instinct was to flee, but he didn't move.  If he left now, he would never be free of the death that he did nothing to prevent, never remove the burden of this outrage from his conscience. 

The cloth fluttered to the ground.  Remus unfroze as the Death Eater raised the silver knife.

"No!" he roared, stumbling through the bushes with his wand pointed at the kneeling figure.

The man scrambled to his feet, his hard, dark eyes glittering through the mask.  "You--" he choked back words, and then dropped the knife in favor of his wand, crying hoarsely, "_Expelliarmus!_"

Remus--his reflexes slowed by horror and revulsion, and by the proximity to silver--felt the wand slip through his sweaty fingers.  The Death Eater deftly caught it, tossing it to the ground disdainfully before pointing his own wand.  Remus roared again and charged, knowing that he must attack even if all he had was his bare hands.  

The curse hit him hard in the gut; he doubled over in pain as he flew backwards.  His back slammed into a tree and he fell to the ground, tasting dirt and leaves and rot as his face hit the forest floor. 

Before the Death Eater could curse him again, there was a rush of air followed by the arrival of another black-clad figure.  Remus, numb and barely able to move, looked up feebly and saw a black cloak swirl menacingly in front of the fallen unicorn. He raised his eyes, expecting to see the short, heavyset Death Eater, but the one who stared down at the stricken animal was taller than the one who had cursed him.  

"What is this? What has happened?" came a cold hiss.

Remus had never heard the voice before, yet there could be no doubt as to who had spoken.  Who else would be behind such a monstrous act?

He struggled to get up, but couldn't move.

Focus on the curse; figure it out from the inside, he thought, amazed at his detachment.  They would notice him soon enough; he'd be at their mercy, and it wouldn't be a fair fight, far from it.  His fingers were leaden, as if plunged into arctic waters and sheathed in ice; his insides twisted painfully like a wet towel being rung out; his legs were numb and unresponsive.  

That was it, a Petrificus Minor curse, meant to partially paralyze rather than to stun.  How many times had he let Sirius practice on him, honing his skills for dueling with Slytherins?  Remus felt a bizarre pride at figuring this out and at the thought that his opponent had not cast the spell properly.  He _should_ have been completely immobile from the neck down, but instead his fingers twitched and with great effort he managed to make his arms move.  A major triumph, that.  He might be able to expel enough of the hex to reach his wand, which lay on the ground less than a meter from his nose, though it seemed like three thousand miles at this point.  He hoped there would be enough time to work free before he was noticed by either of the figures in black.

As he struggled to move, he watched the Dark Lord step nimbly over the body of the fallen creature.  The hem of the cloak brushed over the unicorn's white coat like dark storm clouds whipping across a plain.  

"You blame it on Mulciber, of course."  The hiss remained controlled, malevolent power gliding beneath the surface like a shark hunting unsuspecting swimmers.  "Ah, yes.  Your job is merely to collect the goods, not to notice that you are being followed, no doubt trailed through the forest by--" 

"Master, I swear that we were careful.  No one could have followed us."  The Death Eater fell to his knees as the words spilled out, the voice no longer confident or recognizable.

"You deserve punishment, do you not?" Lord Voldemort sneered and lazily stretched out an arm.  Long, inhumanly pale fingers wrapped around the wand that he pointed at the Death Eater, who fell silent and held himself rigid.

To Remus, the words seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.  The voice worked its way into his head, like a maggot burrowing into a flesh wound.  He couldn't see the face, only the back of the tall thin figure, cloaked and hooded.  Was it true that anyone who had looked on that face was marked for death?  He hoped not.

"Punishment will come later when we have determined the full impact of your blunder," laughed the Dark Lord coldly in a high-pitched voice that didn't fit the hard words or the imposing presence. "Now, however, you have a task to complete.  Do not fail me on this, or your life will be forfeit."

Lord Voldemort stepped aside, his face still hidden by the hood of his cloak, and looked down as the groveling man crawled on his hands and knees to reach the fallen knife.

"_Ennervate!_"  rasped the Dark Lord with a malicious note of triumph in his voice.

The unicorn stirred slightly and blinked once.  The creature didn't lift its head, but its eye--once iridescent, now opaque and gray--searched blindly.  Remus wondered if the unicorn could see him.  His throat tightened and he blinked back tears at the sight of the creature's dull, unseeing eye.  

He rocked his shoulders, pushed his chin against the ground and twisted his abdomen, fighting against pain like jagged pieces of glass ripping through his gut each time he moved.  He managed to shove himself back and up, swaying into a rough sitting position, but could get no further.  His arms barely functioned and his legs might as well have been lumps of clay anchoring his unsteady torso.

 "I'm here."  His lips formed the words soundlessly. Tears stung his eyes and he wanted to shut them tightly, but if he did, he would miss the end that was coming, the end that he could do nothing to prevent.

The Death Eater rose to a kneeling position.  He raised the knife to chest-level.

Remus shuddered.  A wave of revulsion swept through him, threatening to knock him down like a swollen river jumping its banks and flattening everything in its path.  He felt dizzy and, in his delirium, imagined that the Death Eater paused, knife suspended over the unicorn's neck, and stared at him for a long time.  Hours, minutes, seconds?  He couldn't be sure as they had all of them become unstuck in time.

"What are you waiting for?" shrieked Voldemort, breaking the silence.

The Dark Lord swiftly bent over, knocked the Death Eater aside and pried the knife from his gloved hand.  And then he laughed--shrill, cold, triumphant--as the knife came down.

The unicorn shuddered as the knife plunged in to the hilt.  Silver rivulets, like liquid metal, trickled across the once lustrous coat, the tendrils of blood oozing around the buried blade. Lord Voldemort wrenched the knife out and the trickles became a torrent, flowing freely, gathering speed as the knife went in again and again.  

Each blow of the knife sent echoes pulsing thought Remus, amplifying the churning black queasiness inside.  He fought off the spasms in his gut, clenched his teeth and tried to keep from toppling over.  His eyes were locked on the abomination; nothing else existed in his world.

The knife came out a final time. Voldemort tossed it aside and thrust one hand into the bloody wound.  Long, spidery fingers the color of bleached bone disappeared, only to reappear an instant later, coated in shimmering silver unicorn blood.

Remus couldn't hold back his disgust any longer. He retched, spilling his guts as if he too had been ripped open.  He lost his balance, pitched forward, and slammed his head into the ground, face-first in his own vomit.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Kill him? That is for me to decide," Lord Voldemort laughed to the Death Eater at his side.  

The black-cloaked figures stood with their backs to Remus.  He was glad that from where he lay on the ground he couldn't see the dead unicorn, limp and motionless with its neck ripped open, first by the inhuman fingers of Lord Voldemort and then by the more fastidious gloved hands of the Death Eater, who had filled his glass vials with the silvery blood.  

When the Dark Lord turned around, all thoughts of the unicorn evaporated in a heartbeat.  

Skin like sun-bleached bone.  

Nose like a snake…flat with slits where nostrils should be. 

Eyes like a cat…or a reptile, a travesty of any living snake with those blazing scarlet orbs and slits for pupils.  

The monstrose face was grotesque, a mockery of all that was human, perverted with a conscious and twisted purpose that he knew was beyond his understanding.

The Death Eater turned and whispered something to his master, causing the Dark Lord to eye Remus carefully.  Then, the servant whispered more urgently, his gaunt frame shaking, but Remus couldn't make out the words.

 "Interesting… but no concern of yours," came the hissed response. "Your work here is finished.  Go and prepare the rest of the ingredients," he commanded, not taking his livid eyes away from Remus. "I shall make the potion at midnight tonight and it must be...perfect."

The Death Eater gave Remus a final frigid stare, and then Disapparated.

They were alone and Lord Voldemort smiled at him.  It was not a pleasant thing to see.

"And what shall become of you, werewolf?"  

As Remus lay partially paralyzed on the ground, the cold question pierced him like an icicle.  He wanted to find his wand and flee, but only managed a feeble effort to twist onto his side.  He retched again for his labors, painful dry heaves because there was nothing left inside him.

"Filth," spat the Dark Lord.  With a well-placed kick in the ribs, he pushed Remus onto his back like a small boy tormenting a tortoise.  

He felt the impact, although owing to the effects of the hex, which caused numbing and paralysis, he was spared the full quota of pain.  On the other hand, he could do nothing to protect himself.  If he survived, he could expect a very large bruise and maybe a few broken ribs.  

"Dirty animal.  Barely human.  Look at you--rolling in it, covered in your own filth.  That is how your kind always ends."  

Remus thought that his life might end rather soon as he lay staring at the dim remnant of twilight overhead, his eyes watering while the Dark Lord circled like an enormous black carrion bird and spouted caustic bile, wounding him in ways that were not as easily healed as bruises or cuts.

"I find it disgusting," laughed Lord Voldemort viciously, "but you frighten most wizards too much to disgust them.  You're a mindless, savage beast as far as they're concerned. You kill without conscience.  You steal away their children, perverting them if you get the chance.  You consort with Darkness."  

The Dark Lord stopped pacing and leaned over Remus, crimson eyes flashing as the pupils widened.  

"_You are Darkness_."

Remus closed his eyes tightly, blocking sight and feverishly hoping that this would somehow block sound as well.  His hands twitched uselessly at his side when he wanted to use them to cover his ears so he couldn't hear the torrent of words that rained down on the shadowy places in his head and gave form to thoughts that he tried hard not to think. 

 "And they are right to fear you, aren't they?" crooned Lord Voldemort in a softer voice that was about as sweet as rat poison.  "You are strong, much stronger than anyone suspects.  Even now, you are fighting the curse that my servant gave you.  Is that not so?"

The Dark Lord chuckled at the sight of Remus's feeble twitching, and then casually raised his wand. 

"_Finite Incantatum_."

The curse retreated like the tide going out.  Remus felt beached; his arms and legs flailed uselessly.  To steady himself, he rolled over and got up on his hands and knees.  He was still shaking, but the earth beneath him damped the spastic twitching.

After what seemed like an eternity of staring at the ground, he struggled to his feet awkwardly and with much labored breathing.  He'd be damned in whatever hell was reserved for half-human monsters before he'd let himself be killed while on his hands and knees.  Miraculously, he was still alive when he stood erect, face to face with the most powerful Dark wizard of the century.  

Lord Voldemort watched him, the expression in those scarlet catlike eyes incomprehensible.

Remus stared back, though it took great effort to look upon the twisted, once human face.  An ominous silence blanketed the darkening forest and his hand traveled to his cheek, crusted with vomit, leaves and dirt.  He wiped it off, slowly and deliberately.

The Dark Lord raised his wand slightly and Remus braced for the killing curse that did not come.

"_Exos Lavanum_." 

In the blink of an eye, Remus was clean, purged of the dirt-encrusted filth that had been the focus of so much abuse moments earlier.

"That's better, isn't it?"  Lord Voldemort smiled like a snake that had just swallowed its first meal in half a year. 

"Ah, you do not tell others of your strength, do you?" he continued.  "But, Lord Voldemort knows.  Within you there is much power, power that you dare not use.  Why not?  They--" He gave a particularly nasty sneer.  "--tell you that your power is uncontrollable, as if you were a mere beast, a slobbering, drooling, mindless creature.  But that is not so.  Lord Voldemort knows…and has many werewolves in his service.  Many others are ready to join when the time is right.  Not here, though.  The Ministry keeps English werewolves weak; they tie you up with ridiculous laws and fill your heads full of lies and half-truths.  But they are fools to think this will be enough.  You _can_ control what is inside.  You will learn this, werewolf, and you will be glad of it..."

The words had a seductive flavor that made Remus giddy, reminding him suddenly of a particular Defense Against the Dark Arts class in his seventh year, the day that the lot of them, laughing and boisterous as usual, had arrived to find their teacher gone.  In the place of Professor Spinoza stood a nondescript-looking man in tattered robes and a dark brown traveling cloak.  He did not introduce himself.  Instead he began telling them about the Unforgivable curses that they must prepare themselves to face soon.  

"He's an Auror," whispered Columbine Rookwood, whose father worked for the Ministry.  Once the news diffused through the class, the silence was absolute.  All stared with rapt attention as the Auror--who never said his name--described the effects of two of the Unforgivables, the killing curse and the Cruciatus curse.  They all wondered, though none would say it out loud, if this mousy little man whom they would likely ignore if they met on the street had ever used these forbidden spells to catch Dark wizards.  

The third Unforgivable curse he not only described but demonstrated on each of them.  The class continued after the bell rang; no one wanted to leave, even though the Auror was harsh with them, berating the seventh years until each could detect, if not defeat, the Imperius curse.  

Watching his classmates one after another grow slack-jawed and glassy-eyed as they  were made to carry out ridiculous tasks, Remus had assumed that the curse would make him feel thick-witted and fuzzy.  He was not prepared for the clarity of thought and the dizzy feeling of freedom that suffused his mind when the curse was laid upon him.  He was happy, so deliriously happy to be free from all his cares that he did not notice at first that he had started to climb up the curtains that flanked one of the tall narrow windows in the classroom.  Why bother with what his body was doing, after all, when he felt detached, bobbing in a sea of contentment? 

Even as he submitted to the blissful feeling in his head, he felt the currents of the curse surge at a deeper level. Once he knew that a polluted stream was feeding the happy waters on which he so carelessly floated, he could see the lines of the spell in his mind and almost trace the seeping poison back to its source.  With this knowledge came pain.  The harder he resisted, the more intense the fire that tore through his mind.  He fell from his high perch as the struggle in his head weakened the curse.  Then came the physical pain as he hit the stone floor of the classroom and shattered his wrist.  Thus ended his one and only exposure to the Imperius curse.  

"…You will learn this, werewolf, and you will be glad of it." The Dark Lord's words echoed in his mind almost as if the voice alone could conjure up the Imperius curse without the use of wand or word of power.  And like that curse, nasty black threads lurked beneath the silky voice, trying to trap him.  

"The night my father was murdered," Remus said through clenched teeth, half-expecting to feel a stab of searing pain as he struggled to speak, "the Dark Mark could be seen for miles around the village."

Did he detect surprise or anger in the inhuman expression on Voldemort's leering face?  He could not be sure.

"Perhaps you've killed so many that you don't remember," Remus went on, the coldness growing in his voice, "but I cannot forget."

"Lord Voldemort knows everything, Remus Lupin," came the reply, a soft hiss with a hint of malice underneath.  The Dark Lord laid a long bony finger thoughtfully along his cheek.  "I cannot forget that your father wrote lies about me, clever lies that would have been misunderstood by weak-minded witches and wizards.  This angered my faithful servants.  They only sought to correct the obvious mistruths, my Death Eaters."  

The forest was fully dark now.  There would be no moon and the vaulted ceiling of trees hid the sky in any case.  In spite of the darkness around them, Remus could see clearly the bleached white face and red eyes that leered at him.  Perhaps the hidden heart of the forest wove its own spell or else Lord Voldemort glowed with a terrible magic all his own.  

"Yes…your father and his nasty, bothersome lies.  When the wizard press refused to print them (and my friends were most insistent on that score), he printed them himself, as if Lord Voldemort could be defeated by mere paper and ink."  

The Dark Lord's high-pitched shrieking laughter filled the little clearing.  With a swirl of his cloak, he stepped behind Remus where he continued in a low, angry hiss, "Your father was a Muggle, was he not?  It is a… perversion for Muggles to marry witches.  It must not be allowed."

Relief at not seeing the snake-like face mingled with the fear at having the Dark Lord at his back.  Remus looked down at the ground, unable to avoid the still luminous body of the unicorn, and drew a deep, steadying breath.

 "This Muggle father of yours," said Lord Voldemort in a calmer voice as he completed his circuit and reappeared before Remus, "do you think he ever understood you?"

 It occurred to Remus that he could have fled at any point, but instead he stood paralyzed--not by a spell, but by feelings of confusion and outrage.  Reminded by the Dark Lord's taunting, he remembered keenly the burden of guilt that his mother still bore for ruining his father's life; she seemed to believe that, merely by being a witch, she had saddled her husband with a monster for a son.  But his father--dead for two years--had always regarded his son's condition as just another challenge and had borne the inconvenience and injury with his usual calm detachment.  Or had he?  How could Remus ever know for certain?

"You cannot be sure, can you?"  The Dark Lord echoed Remus's thoughts; his nostrils flared as if he could smell the uncertainty in the air.  "Your family and your friends will eventually give you up for lost, you know that.  There is no refuge, no place to go in the wizarding world--a world full of misguided weaklings who do not have the courage to value real power.  They will turn on you sooner or later and you will die like a cornered animal."

Remus sprang, not at the leering face, but toward the wand that lay on the ground.  He scrambled to stand again as the other wizard, eyes widening in what might have been surprise, raised his wand and laughed.  

 "Only Lord Voldemort knows how to value you, werewolf.  In my service you will find power and more, much more." 

The Dark Lord swiftly stepped closer as Remus tried to calm him mind enough to call forth even a simple spell.

"Expect my emissary to call upon you…soon," hissed Lord Voldemort.  "You will have much to discuss."  

Remus recovered enough to tense, ready to spring, but the Dark wizard was quicker.

"_Stupef--_"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

**Author's Note:** This tale is, of course, excerpted from a longer piece called 'Stag Night'. If you have read 'Stag Night', you'll see that I have combined certain flashbacks in that story into this piece. Certain parts of the Wolf's Tale that had to be left out of the current version of 'Stag Night' have been restored here.   
  
Many, many thanks to all who have read and reviewed! Special thanks to Blaise and Morrighan for advice on tourism in the West Country.   
  
_~ CLS (10 November 2002)_


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